With the first few weeks of the school year wrapping up, the opportunity to easily drop and change classes has come to a close. Ideally, this means everyone is where they want to be and taking the classes they want to take.

Personally, jumping from class to class didn’t resolve my discontent.

Sensing hostility and apathy in both philosophy courses I attempted to add, I had to wonder – why the hesitation? Was there something intrinsic to philosophy that created this atmosphere?

I decided to ask a few classmates why they enrolled in the course in hopes of discovering a common theme.

It is a Tuesday at 12:55 p.m., and Intro to Philosophy: Selected Problems has just ended. With a hopeful attitude, I am standing outside the door with a clipboard to take notes. I stop the first student rushing out the door, obviously intent on getting far, far away.

“Excuse me,” I ask, touching his shoulder. “Could I ask you a quick question?” He wearily looks at me, neither objecting to nor accepting my request. I proceed.

“Why exactly are you taking a philosophy class?” A look of dread and angst rises to his face; apparently I asked a triggering question.

“I am in the middle of an existential crisis and I’m looking for answers. The fact that all we’ve read so far is Descartes is only making it worse, because we learned he dealt with his own issues by hallucinating in an overheated room. Where does that leave me?”

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“Oh.”

I become rather uncomfortable and, for my own sake, I interpret his last question as rhetorical.

I stop another student, this time a female with brown hair and glasses, holding a coffee mug.

“Excuse me, miss, can I ask you a silly question? Why are you taking a philosophy course?”

She rolls her eyes and takes a long drink of coffee before answering, and I’m starting to wonder if the third time’s going to be the charm.

“It’s literally just a graduation requirement, and a frustrating one at that. I’m failing to understand how it will help me with my astronomy major.

Galileo is the only person I have remote interest in – and he was exiled for making a grand, revolutionary discovery.

That’s completely inapplicable to me,” she snaps. “I’m three years into my major and still don’t know exactly what I’m doing – there’s no way I’ll be making discoveries big enough to get me exiled.”

“Yeah…I see how that’s kind of obnoxious.”

The paper on my clipboard is still blank. I’m having difficulty weeding out what I should actually write down.

“Well, don’t you want my reason for being here?” I hear behind me. I spin around to see a stocky male, with sweat stains on his shirt for no apparent reason. Did he just get out of philosophy or the gym?

“Um, yeah, shoot, why?”

“Well,” he puts his hand on his hips, “it kind of feels like civic duty, in a way. I mean, here are all these – no offense – these morons, who are just so lost… they need me, you know?

Who else is going to insist their God isn’t real twice a week? Who else is going to instill a sense of philosophical incompetence into them?”

He is beginning to sweat some more, and now I get the deal with his shirt.

“I have so many good things to share with them that sometimes it’s hard to fit it into a 75-minute class, but I do my best.

By the way, I don’t see you writing any of this down, and I don’t know why. This is no doubt better than what those two other people said – I’ve heard them speak in class.”

It’s getting bleak, to say the least. Finally, I go inside the classroom to ask the professor what he thinks.

He stares blankly at his computer screen. As I walk around to approach him, I see the blank screen. Dark. Nothing.

“Excuse me?”

There is no reply. He is in the abyss, overcome by feelings of his inadequacy in moderating discussions, and regretting his profession. It radiates and it consumes. I sit down next to him, joining the staring contest with my similarly blank sheet of paper.